These are tough times for retail in the High Street, but some shops are benefitting from a growing concern for the ethics of production.

The colourful shop window of the Fair Trade Shop, in Uppler Brook Street, a pioneer of ethical trading with gifts from around the world. Picture: DAVID VINCENT

In Ipswich, the Fair Trade Shop is ticking all the ethical boxes, selling a vast range of products from the four corners of the world, intended to better reward the people who make them and its sales are increasing.

There are clothes, foods and beverages, homewares from carpets to lamp holders, wooden toys, silver jewellery and a whole lot more.

There are sourced from India and South America, Africa and Indonesia.

The Ipswich shop is 28 years-old, and coming up for four years in its premises in Upper Brook Street, and it is a not-for-profit business, mainly reliant on a team of volunteers, with a part-time paid manager.

A wide range of gifts from around the world at the Fair Trade Shop in Upper Brook Street, Ipswich. Picture: DAVID VINCENT

One popular line is incense and scented candles, so when walking in the shop it always has an exotic blend of perfumes.

Organiser Margaret Fish took me round the shop.

She has been involved sinces the early years, when it was started by an Ipswich church. Then it moved to a shop in Orwell Place before coming to this central location.

"You have got to go into the High Street, although you have rent and rates, to meet the public.